Google has started its self-driving project in 2009 and in 2016 it funded a completely new company called Waymo. Google today is one of the first company that put on the road level 4 autonomous vehicles and that says to have driven 3.5 million of autonomous kilometers in public roads.

In the autonomous vehicles arena there are many other interesting competitors like Bosch, Nvidia, Apple, Tesla and Navya that opened the orders for its Autonom Cab. We can’t even forget all the other traditional automakers like Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda and Daimler that are working on autonomous cars as the only future possible for their business. So, even if the competition is really high, for me Google will dominate self-driving market like it is dominating Internet but let me explain how starting from a schematisation of what Google did for the web.

As you can see Google created an ecosystem based on technologies, services, contents and advertising more or less​ in the same ​way it is​ doing with its mobility company Waymo. Waymo indeed created its own technology that is supposed to be designed “just” to drive autonomously around the city like Gmail was designed just for sending emails, Google Search just for indexing the web and YouTube just for sharing videos.

Waymo has a proprietary combination of self-driving hardware and software that besides going alone around the city, I’m sure that will distribute personalized and localized advertising for passengers and pedestrians installing external displays. In the near future Google will sell targetized advertising aggregating data from our Android account, our web/video history, our interests, our purchases and lastly our daily commuting and the places we live!

“The detail we capture with our custom LiDAR is so high that not only can we detect pedestrians all around us, but we can tell which direction they’re facing.”

This means that Waymo’s cars can count the “views” exactly like AdWords, AdSense and Google Analytics do on the web.From the advertisers point of view this targeting option is absolutely incredible and it opens to the most effective and distributed local/real-time marketing​ of the digital era but is not enough. The neutrality of the Waymo’s platform means that all the traditional automakers will have the opportunity to deploy the bigG self-driving technology paying for the full package, or paying a fee and letting Google use their data and their space for advertising. If this sounds disturbing, well, if you used at least one Google product Android included, you are already in the system!

What could be defined the Google’s Digital business model will give to Waymo two solid revenue sources that will make affordable and viral its technology like happened with Android, AdSense, Adword, Analytics, Maps, Office Suites, Webmasters Tools, Wallet and yes, even YouTube.

The Waymo’s integration with other Google services will be amazing and will make taking a ride as easy as searching for a website or zooming a map. Privacy will have to be taken really seriously but we all see in the future how the market winner will manage this issue.

In the meanwhile I’ll continue to read and design, so if you liked this post, share it and come back on my site.

I’m following the evolution of the self-driving technologies with a lot of interest. Many automotive companies say that by 2020/2022 they will commercialize autonomous cars that will reach the level 4 or 5 of the SAE International Automated Driving standards.
Below the table that is commonly adopted by all the automotive industry.

Wired points the level 3 human problem in a very clear way: humans are not capable to maintain their attention if they are not interested or required to. For simplifying, a crash in self-driving mode cannot be avoided thanks to the intervention of the driver that in the meanwhile could be reading a newspaper or watching a video. Humans are just too slow and in that case even too distracted for recognizing the risk and avoiding a crush.

I work in Digital Communication and I’ve worked on the functional & user experience design of websites, mobile applications, advergames, digital signage systems and info kiosks.

I love cars and motorcycles since when I was a child. I remember very well the “procedure” that my parents had to apply first to start our old Fiat 500, the incredible internal design of the Renault 4 of my neighbour and the unintelligible fashion of the Motobecane Mobyx parked in my garage.

I think that cars and motorcycles are the most impressive demonstration of the humankind power of imagination and adaptation. Imagination because who put together the technology necessary for an “autonomous run” of a 4/2 wheels object for me was an artists, not an engineer. Adaptation because driving a car or a motorcycle is one of the most complex mixture of unnatural gestures that we have on the earth.

Soli is a Google’s Project that enable users to interact with digital devices without touching them. Nothing really new, except for the hardware technology that concentrates everything in one small “piece of sand” on the electronic device board.

Using the same “approach” that is already used by dolphins, whales and bats, the Google researchers created a single chip that can identify and translate simple gestures in effective commands even through other materials.

Post navigation

Antonio Patti

I'm an happy husband, a digital professional since 2006 and a capoerist divided between Italy and Brazil.
I work as Digital Product Manager and Digital Strategist at the Transport Company of Milan.
Here I write in English and Italian about Digital Communication, Product Design, Automotive, Transportation and User Experience.